Bloody River Blues: A Location Scout Mystery (6 page)

“The bus depot,” Sloan answered. “We don’t need the bus depot anymore.”

“Okay. That’s easy. You want a house. You want to do interiors there?”

“I don’t
want
to, no.” Sloan’s voice was exasperated. “Why would I want to?”

“I didn’t mean
want
to, Tony. I meant are you going to?”

The eyes rose. “I
want
to build a set. On a soundstage. I don’t want to have to cram all the damn equipment into a twelve-by-fourteen-foot living room. But I don’t have any choice.”

“You want a bungalow with a twelve-by-fourteen living room.”

“Well, I
want
bigger. If you can get me bigger.”

“I’ll—”

The voice was very close to Pellam’s ear. “Excuse me.” He started in surprise.

They turned.

“One of you John Pellam?”

Pellam smiled a greeting.

“I’m Detective Gianno, this’s Detective Hagedorn. With the Maddox Police Department.”

Pellam saw ID cards and gold badges and immediately forgot their names. An Italian detective, dark-complected and short. And a WASP detective, blond, athletic, tall. He had a very square jaw. Pellam smelled after-shave. Something dry. He had been close to cops a few times in his life and could not recall smelling after-shave on a law enforcer.

Sloan said, “What’s this all about?” His eyes now alighted on the Italian detective’s and remained fixed.

The cop asked in response, “Who’re you?”

“Tony Sloan.” When they registered no response he added, “I’m the director.”

The WASP turned away from him. “If you’ll excuse us we’d like to talk to Mr. Pellam here.”

“If there’s some problem, I’m in charge of—”

“There won’t be a problem, sir—” he glanced at Sloan as if he were a nagging panhandler “—if you’d just give us a few minutes alone with Mr. Pellam here.”

Sloan gave him an astonished glance then turned to Pellam. “I’ll get you that house, Tony.”

The director wandered off to a motorized camera crane, a Chapman Apollo, the boom extended and the camera platform nearly ten feet above the ground. Sloan paused in the shadow of the boom and glanced back at the two men now standing on either side of Pellam. Several grips and gaffers noticed Sloan’s frown and stopped what they were doing to watch the three men.

The WASP stepped closer. The scent of lime was very strong. “The
Post-Dispatch
did a story about this film.” He spoke with the same stilted formality that
marks conversations between cops and civilians all around the world.

“It’s a crime movie? About bank robbers?” The Italian detective said this as if people would not think of breaking the law if movies didn’t put the idea into their heads.

“Armored car robbers,” Pellam corrected.

“We’ve never had a movie made in Maddox,” he added solemnly. “I hope you portray the town in a good light. We’ve had our share of trouble but that’s not our fault.”

“No, it isn’t,” said the WASP.

“What exactly,” Pellam asked, “do you want?”

“Last night there was a shooting. We’re wondering if you could give us some information about it.”

“Around here?”

“It happened on Third, near the river.”

He tried to remember if he had heard anything. He couldn’t recall but with the tape deck playing and the Cardinals on TV and the noise of five men playing poker, a lot of sound outside would get missed. Pellam shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I can help you.” He started to walk away.

The WASP detective put a firm grip on Pellam’s shoulder and laughed in surprise, like a schoolteacher insulted by a student. “Hey, hey, hold up there a minute. We’re not through yet.”

Pellam shrugged the hand off and turned around. “I can’t help you.”

“Well, we think you can, sir. A policeman was shot and critically injured and two people were killed. Vincent Gaudia and a Miss Sally Ann Moore.”

“I’m sorry. That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“People are killed and you don’t care?” the WASP asked. His hands, palms up, rose at his sides.

“I don’t mean that. I just mean I don’t know who they are.”

The Italian was saying, “The car? The Lincoln? Does that ring a bell?”

“No. I . . . Oh, wait. There
was
this guy got out of a big car, maybe it was a Lincoln. I didn’t really notice. I’d bought some beer. He bumped into me.”

“Could you describe him?”

“Was he the guy who was killed?”

“Description?”

“Not too tall, stocky, balding, a beard or mustache, I think. Mid or late thirties.”

“Race?”

“White.”

“Any scars or markings?”

“I don’t remember any.”

“What was he wearing?”

“A jacket, I think. Jeans. Dark mostly.”

“He was alone in the Lincoln?”

“No. There was somebody else. They drove off after a while.”

“They?”

“Well,
he
.”

“Could you describe him?”

“I didn’t see him.”

The detectives didn’t exactly exchange glances but their eyes swung like slow pendulums toward each other.

Sloan called, “Pellam, you gonna get me that house, or what?”

The Italian detective called back, “This is official police business, mister.”

Oh, brother.
Pellam cocked his head helplessly at Sloan and said, “They’re just asking me a few questions.”

Sloan continued to stare for a moment, eyes no longer flitting with artistic distraction but now boring angrily into the cluster of men from the shadow of the crane.

“The thing is, Mr. Pellam,” the Italian cop continued, “the officer who was shot . . .”

“He was shot a number of times in the back,” his partner said.

“God, that’s awful.”

“. . . said he saw you talking to someone in the car. He—”

“
He
was the one got shot? That policeman? Danny? What was the name?”

“Donnie Buffett.”

“That’s terrible. Yeah, I was talking to him. Is he going to be okay?”

“They don’t know,” the Italian cop said.

In the thick silence that followed they stared at him. Pellam felt guilty under these gazes. “I didn’t see him. The driver, I mean. I looked. I looked into the car but I wasn’t really talking
to
him. I was just saying things. It wasn’t like a conversation.”

“How did you know it was a man?”

Pellam didn’t speak for a moment. “That’s a good question. I don’t really. I just assumed it was.”

“You seem pretty sure it was a man,” the WASP said. “You said
him
.”

“I was assuming it was a man.”

The Italian cop said, “It’d just be kind of strange, wouldn’t it, you’re standing a few feet from someone,
not to at least see what they were wearing? What their sex was? Whether they were black or white?”

“I don’t know what’s strange or not, but that’s what happened. It was night—”

“Adams is lit up like Gateway Park,” the Italian cop said.

The WASP detective looked at his partner. “All those car accidents. That’s why they put in sodium vapors.”

“There was glare,” Pellam said. “That was one of the problems. On the windows. I was blinded.”

“So the fact it was
night
wasn’t the problem,” said the WASP. “I mean, you said it was night as if you meant it was too dark to see anything. But now what you’re saying is it wasn’t dark at all. It was too
bright
.”

“I guess,” Pellam said.

“What kind of Lincoln was it?”

“Black.”

“What
kind?
”

“How do you mean?”

“Town Car? Continental?”

“I didn’t notice. I wish I had but I only remember it being big and black.”

“You’re sure it was black?”

“Well, it was dark. Navy blue maybe.”

They asked about license plates, dents, scratches, damage, bumper stickers . . .

Pellam couldn’t help them.

The cops fell silent.

“Do you think I’m lying?”

“It’s just kind of strange is all we’re saying.”

“What’s strange?” Pellam rocked on his boot heels.

“Being so close and all and not seeing anything,” the WASP said. “That’s strange.”

“It was dark.” Pellam tried to sound as frustrated as they were.

“And there was a lot of glare,” the Italian added. Sarcastic? Pellman couldn’t tell.

“Officer Buffett said he saw you talking to whoever was in the car.”

“I told you, I wasn’t having a conversation with him . . . or her.” Pellam saw, in the distance, the curtain in a window of Sloan’s van pull aside for a moment. A black gap was visible and in that gap Pellam imagined he could see the two tiny, paranoid eyes of an impatient visionary director. He said to the WASP, who though bigger seemed more reasonable, “Look, I’m very busy just now. This is a bad time for this.”

The blond cop just repeated, “Officer Buffett said you were talking to the driver. What are we supposed to think about that?”

Pellam sighed. “I was mad. I was just talking to let off steam. I don’t remember what I said. I was muttering.”

“Why were you mad?”

“The guy I told you about, the one who got out of the car, bumped into me and I dropped a case of beer.”

“Why did he do that?”

“It was an accident. He didn’t do it on purpose.”

“If it was an accident,” the WASP asked slowly, “why were you so mad you were talking to yourself?”

The Italian cop offered, “ ‘Muttering,’ you said.”

“Okay, that’s it. I’ve got nothing more to say.” Pellam started away, tensing his muscles, ready for another vise grip.

Neither cop followed, but the blond said, “There’s two dead people and a cop shot in the back.”

His partner offered, “People sometimes get scared. They don’t want to volunteer, to be witnesses. You don’t have to be worried. We can protect you.”

“I didn’t see anybody get shot. All I saw was some guy who nearly knocked me on my ass.”

“We’re more concerned with the person in the car. We think he’s the one who ordered the hit.”

“Sorry. Now, if there’s nothing else . . .” Pellam lifted his hands like a TV preacher confronted with more sin than he can absolve.

“Will you at least help us do a sketch of the man you saw?”

“Yes. Sure. But not now.”

The WASP cop shifted his weight like an impatient college boy. He was no longer reasonable. “He’s not going to cooperate.”

“Cooperate?”

The WASP said to his grimacing partner, “Let’s go. He’s a GFY.” The cops put their notebooks away.

“What’s a GFY?” Pellam demanded.

“An official term we use about reluctant witnesses.”

“I’m not reluctant. I didn’t see anything.”

When they got to the perimeter of the set, the Italian cop turned suddenly and said, “Look, mister, a lot of local people cooperated with you so you could shoot this damn movie here. They aren’t going to be too happy to hear you’re not so cooperative in return.”

The WASP cop waved his arm. “Aw, he’s a GFY. Why bother?” They walked off the set.

In Sloan’s trailer, the curtain fell closed.

THE INDICTMENTS AGAINST
him read:

Counts 1–2: Conspiracy to sell controlled substances.

Counts 3–32: Criminal federal income tax fraud.

Count 33: Conspiracy to interfere with civil rights.

Counts 34–35: Perjury.

Count 36: Extortion.

Counts 37–44: Criminal violations of the Racketeering-Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.

Peter Crimmins did not exactly have the words memorized but this—the paraphrase—he knew, the essence of the government’s case against him.

Crimmins (the name was his father’s impulsive recasting of Crzniolak) was fifty-four. He had a body like a pear, a face like a potato. His hair was combed forward in bangs, Frank Sinatra style, over his high forehead, on which a single dark mole rested above his left eyebrow like a misplaced third eye. He was presently sitting in his office, which overlooked the parking lot of his trucking company and, through windows in the opposite wall, a large room filled with gray desks, filing cabinets, overhead fluorescent fixtures and a dozen office workers who appeared simultaneously bored and anxious.

Peter Crimmins had a thousand business decisions he should be making but it was the words of the indictment that kept running through his mind.

And they made him furious.

Oh, several counts were nonsense and had been
thrown in by an eager runt of an assistant U.S. Attorney. The civil rights thing, ridiculous. Conspiracy, ridiculous. The drug counts were absurd. He had never sold an atom of any controlled substance. The extortion, well, that was somewhat true but only a little. But what infuriated him were the counts that were accurate—the RICO charges.

Peter Crimmins thought of himself as a blue-collar philosopher and had decided that there were simple rules in life you could figure out without anyone’s help. Not the Ten Commandments, which were a little too simple-minded even for a good Russian Orthodox like him to buy. But rules like: A man’s dignity should be respected, take care of those who cannot take care of themselves, do your duty, support your family, don’t hurt anyone innocent . . .

You live your life by those rules and you will do just fine. So here he was, doing his duty, supporting his family, not hurting anyone (anybody innocent, at any rate), making a living, going to church occasionally—and what happens? He runs smack into another set of rules. And these rules made no sense to him at all.

They were pure idiocy.

The problem was that they were collected in Title 18 of the
United States Code.
And if you happened to break
these
rules, people would come after you and try to put you in jail.

But what was the most frustrating of all was that he was wrestling with these forty-four indictments solely because of a single mistake, which was that he had hired a maniac, Vincent Gaudia, now deceased, gunned down the day before.

The two men were contrasts. Crimmins had noticed this immediately, at their first meeting, in a German restaurant in Webster Groves, Missouri. Crimmins was unflashy. He had years of experience as a labor negotiator before he left the union and opened his own business. He drank vodka in moderation and smoked Camels and wore boxer shorts and white shirts and combed his hair with Vitalis every day and he loved playing pool and boccie with friends he had known for years. He was faithful to his wife of thirty-three years and he served on the planning and zoning commission of his suburban hometown. Crimmins was a controlled man, a disciplined man, a
solid
man.